(28/3/2016) Double declutching - Royal Blue 2200 Bristol LS6G OTT43 - Wythall Easter Monday
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- Опубликовано: 8 сен 2024
- An enjoyable tour around Wythall Transport Museum, covering Beoley, Wood End and Earlswood, on a mid-engine Bristol coach. Built in 1953, OTT43 was new to Western National and was allocated to the Royal Blue coach service. Its ECW coachwork features a stair at the rear, which leads to the luggage storage space on the roof. It was fitted with Gardner 6HLW horizontal engine and a 5 speed non-synchromesh gearbox, so double declutching is necessary during gear shifts, as obviously no one wants to risk damaging the vintage gearbox with float shifting!
Thanks for watching!
It's so nice to see a skilled driver operating a vintage bus with a crash box, (NOT EASY) and having to steer it as well. Nice job and a great video.
This is glorious! As mentioned below, so many similar videos fail to catch the engine sounds - just drowned out by passenger conversations. This is excellent.
Lovely stuff. I had the great honour to travel on an LS6 from London to Kathmandu in 1979, and then the greater honour of co-driving back again.
How great! I would loved to have done the Kathmandu trip - especially in a Bristol. Was it with Asian Greyhound? As a kid I'd imagine driving a converted bus on some long distance continental adventure - complete with 'my Gardner or AEC sound effects.' Then discovered the possibility actually existed with Swagman, Top Deck and the others, but unfortunately I never managed the time to do it. You were very lucky! Always enjoyed the sheer incongruity (and British over engineering) of a bus that spent it's days tootling around English country lanes - then going on to cross the Baluchistan Desert in it's retirement! Lovely driving in the video.
@@robertp.wainman4094 The bus that I drove,, SLA 762, was formerly used by Asian Greyhound. One of their drivers 'inherited' the bus by way of unpaid salary when AG went out of business, and started the Anglo Australian Comfortable Coach Company, with another driver who was Australian. It was the AACCC when I went on it. Full information at www.decdun.me.uk/AACCC/index.html
@@Nnnuuk Thank you for your reply.. How interesting that I've read the AACCC site before, what a wonderful name! I wonder how many times SLA 762 did that mammoth journey? Exciting days of travel, I'm sure. It didn't end up with Coast and Country Coaches in Whitby - did it? As I know their LS had apparently been on the Kathmandu route - years before it's life touring 'Heartbeat Country.' Tim and Sylvie sounded like a nice couple - how sad what happened.
@@robertp.wainman4094 I remember Tim Harrison saying that he had done 11 or 12 trips, and the bus would have been used on that journey at least a few times before he drove. It's a tribute to how well it was put together because some of those scrape roads, and even worse, the corrugated bitumen roads, almost shook the teeth out of our gums. I can't find any record of SLA 762 today, so I guess that it eventually went for scrap. Very sad given its history.
@@Nnnuuk Yes, it's sad for it not to survive - especially after all those phenomenal ardous miles to Nepal undertaken on so many journeys. I can only imagine the condition of the roads and 'teeth shaking' you endured. I remember reading a Top Deck article about what was consumed on an average Lodekka trip to Kathmandu, besides the fuel,oil and tyres etc. - was a generous amount of self tapping screws for reattaching the many items shaken loose! But there's just something about the sounds of the Gardner and transmission that inspires a confidence they would plod on forever. How long was your return journey? I knew someone who's partner drove for Encounter Overland in the 70's - they brought an empty Bedford back from Nepal and were stuck for days in Turkey with frozen diesel. Really great days of adventure - have you written any more of your travels?
I always marvelled at the theory and practice behind “double de-clutching”
I learnt to do that first of all in my RILEY 1.5 whose third gear synchro was worn out😉
Now there's a skilful and experienced driver. I doubt if there are many these days who could handle a crash box and a huge non-assisted steering wheel like that.
jim jenks the same amount as there would have been years ago people are not retarded these days and can’t drive just because it’s been made easier for us all
Beautiful coach!
Love the tachograph position by clutch pedal😂
It would have to be a Gardner to let him get away with leaving it in that gear at 30:47, and he really wasn't prepared for the junction at 30:41 either.... a Gardner is very forgiving!
Can you please do more like this one except see if you can get it onto the motorway because that thing sounds terrific
OTT43?? I am sure this is one of the Asian Greyhound 'Swagman' coaches which traveled overland to Kathmandu. I was one of their mechanics. Nightmare to drive and so heavy with mechanical clutch and vacuum brakes.
Takes a bit of skill to handle a crash box and remember to steer at the same time! No wonder the semi auto's took off
Nice!!!
this is, blue, royal is a coach co. western national, is green, is a bus company
I put "Western National" in the title because the record on The Bus Lists on the Web said so. I believe Royal Blue was owned by Western National? Anyway, thanks for pointing that out and I have changed that.
Engine sounds like Leyland
Gardner 6HLW
This is glorious! As mentioned below, so many similar videos fail to catch the engine sounds - just drowned out by passenger conversations. This is excellent.
I completely agree with you! Aren't these sounds beautiful - so mellow and relaxed compared to any modern vehicle.
@@robertp.wainman4094 Absolutely! Modern buses with their revvy engines and auto-boxes are completely different beasts. I spent so many happy miles in various lorries that my Dad drove when I was a child, the sound of a slow revving diesel with a heavy flywheel, crash-box, etc, is pure music to my ears - a complete blast of nostalgia. Modern vehicles are so efficient, powerful and safe but they completely lack the character of the old ones.
@@mikaelabowen5781 Your words are music to my ears too - you capture the essence of those classic commercial vehicles perfectly. So nice when someone's on the same wavelength. I have an old Daily Telegraph article on London Transport RT's - written with such obvious affection and containing similar descriptions to yours - 'Under stressed "low revving diesels," "heavy flywheels"- and the occasional contented exhalation of compressed air.' Love it!
I guess for me much of the attraction is in the feeling and atmosphere created by the wonderful designs and melodious aural delights of these classics.
How great travelling with your Dad - what did he drive?
Thank you for your nice comment on Jasmine's video, I've had many cats over the years and all were special - but she and I had an extraordinary bond. I miss her so much. What's your 'torty' called?
@@mikaelabowen5781 Sorry - just re-read - she's Pansy.
@@robertp.wainman4094 My pleasure entirely! Have you read The BIg Load by Ted Murphy? He was a lorry driver of very much the old-school, starting pre-WW2. He wrote the book about his life as a driver in (I think) the early sixties, when even the "modern" lorries were primitive by today's standards. It's a cracking good read. He also wrote a book about driving buses, I forget the title off hand.
Dad drove for BRS, among other firms. My first journey was in a Ford ET6 - coming home from the maternity ward as a baby! There was a parrot-nosed Dodge tipper (exactly like the Hawlett's lorries) and a Big Bedford - both fantastically worn out and falling apart, both routinely overloaded to ridiculous degrees. Later came a lovely little Morris FG that he loved, a Commer rigid that he used to polish and keep immaculate, then Seddon. ARC and Guy artics. The Seddons were a mix of tin and plastic cabs and one in particular remains the noisiest vehicle I have ever ridden in - at certain revs it was impossible to hear the driver shouting, when sitting in the passenger seat. There was also almost a full 360 degree slack in the steering, so Dad was constantly having to wind on lock as the lorry wandered about on the road camber. The Guy was a brand new Big J4T, AEC motor and six speed crash box with a 40 foot York van and was the first vehicle I ever drove on the road (down the M5 from Brum to Blackpole each Friday night when I was about 8). That lorry was a delight. After that came a worn out TK artic with a Scammell coupling and a loose cab and the most spectacular thirst for engine oil.
I currently have two kitties - sisters called Foden and Pansy (Pansy is the tortie), they're thirteen years old now.